Herb had been with the company for more than eight years and had worked  to turn or what to say. He had no control over the functional managers who were creating the problems, but he was the person who was being held responsible.  After another three months the customer, becoming impatient, realized that the Trophy Project was in serious trouble and requested that the division general manager and his entire staff visit the customer’s plant to give a progress and “get well” report within a week. The divi- sion general manager called Reichart into his office and said, “Reichart, go visit our customer. Take three or four functional line people with you and try to placate him with whatever you feel is necessary.” Reichart and four functional line people visited the customer and gave a four-and-a-half-hour presentation defining the problems and the progress to that point. The customer was very polite and even commented that it was an excellent presentation, but the content was totally unacceptable. The program was still six to eight months late, and the cus- tomer demanded progress reports on a weekly basis. The customer made arrangements to assign a representative in Reichart’s department to be “on-site” at the project on a daily basis and to interface with Reichart and his staff as required. After this turn of events, the program became very hectic.  The customer representative demanded constant updates and problem identification and then became involved in attempting to solve these problems. This involvement created many changes in the program and the product in order to eliminate some of the problems. Reichart had trouble with the customer and did not agree with the changes in the program. He expressed his disagreement vocally when, in many cases, the customer felt the changes were at no cost. This caused a deterioration of the relationship between client and producer.  One morning Reichart was called into the division general manager’s office and introduced to Mr. “Red” Baron. Reichart was told to turn over the reins of the Trophy Project to Red imme- diately. “Reichart, you will be temporarily reassigned to some other division within the corpo- ration. I suggest you start looking outside the company for another job.” Reichart looked at Red and asked, “Who did this? Who shot me down?”  Red was program manager on the Trophy Project for approximately six months, after which, by mutual agreement, he was replaced by a third project manager. The customer reas- signed his local program manager to another project. With the new team the Trophy Project was finally completed one year behind schedule and at a 40 percent cost overrun.  on various R&D and product enhancement projects for external clients. He had a Ph.D. in engineering and had developed a reputation as a subject matter expert. Because of his specialized skills, he worked by himself most of the time and interfaced with the various project teams only during project team meetings. All o ...

1. Herb had been with the company for more than eight years and
had worked
to turn or what to say. He had no control over the functional
managers who were creating the problems, but he was the
person who was being held responsible.
After another three months the customer, becoming impatient,
realized that the Trophy Project was in serious trouble and
requested that the division general manager and his entire staff
visit the customer’s plant to give a progress and “get well”
report within a week. The divi- sion general manager called
Reichart into his office and said, “Reichart, go visit our
customer. Take three or four functional line people with you
and try to placate him with whatever you feel is necessary.”
Reichart and four functional line people visited the customer
and gave a four-and-a-half-hour presentation defining the
problems and the progress to that point. The customer was very
polite and even commented that it was an excellent
presentation, but the content was totally unacceptable. The
program was still six to eight months late, and the cus- tomer
demanded progress reports on a weekly basis. The customer
made arrangements to assign a representative in Reichart’s
department to be “on-site” at the project on a daily basis and to
interface with Reichart and his staff as required. After this turn
of events, the program became very hectic.
The customer representative demanded constant updates and
problem identification and then became involved in attempting
to solve these problems. This involvement created many
changes in the program and the product in order to eliminate
some of the problems. Reichart had trouble with the customer
and did not agree with the changes in the program. He expressed
his disagreement vocally when, in many cases, the customer felt
the changes were at no cost. This caused a deterioration of the

2. relationship between client and producer.
One morning Reichart was called into the division general
manager’s office and introduced to Mr. “Red” Baron. Reichart
was told to turn over the reins of the Trophy Project to Red
imme- diately. “Reichart, you will be temporarily reassigned to
some other division within the corpo- ration. I suggest you start
looking outside the company for another job.” Reichart looked
at Red and asked, “Who did this? Who shot me down?”
Red was program manager on the Trophy Project for
approximately six months, after which, by mutual agreement, he
was replaced by a third project manager. The customer reas-
signed his local program manager to another project. With the
new team the Trophy Project was finally completed one year
behind schedule and at a 40 percent cost overrun.
on various R&D and product enhancement projects for external
clients. He had a Ph.D. in engineering and had developed a
reputation as a subject matter expert. Because of his specialized
skills, he worked by himself most of the time and interfaced
with the various project teams only during project team
meetings. All of that was about to change.
Herb’s company had just won a two-year contract from one of
its best customers. The first year of the contract would be R&D
and the second year would be manufacturing. The company
made the decision that the best person qualified to be the
project manager was Herb because of his knowledge of R&D
and manufacturing. Unfortunately, Herb had never taken any
courses in project management, and because of his limited
involvement with previous project teams, there were risks in
assigning him as the project manager. But management believed
he could do the job.
1. © 2010 by Harold Kerzner. Reproduced by permission. All

3. rights reserved.
330
MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
The Team Is Formed
Herb’s team consisted of fourteen people, most of whom would
be full time for at least the first year of the project. The four
people that Herb
Friday the 13th
● Frank, a five-year employee with the company, was a
manufacturing engineer.
Unlike Alice, Bob, and Betty, Frank would be part time on the
project until it was time to prepare the manufacturing plans.
For the first two months of the program, work seemed to be
progressing as planned. Everyone understood their role on the
project and there were no critical issues.
Herb held weekly teams meetings every Friday from 2:00 to
3:00 p.m.
Unfortunately the next team meeting would fall on Friday the
13th, and that bothered Herb because he was somewhat
superstitious. He was considering canceling the team meeting
just for that week but decided against it.
At 9:00 a.m., on Friday the 13th, Herb met with his project
sponsor as he always did in the past. Two days before, Herb
casually talked to his sponsor in the hallway and the sponsor
told Herb that on Friday the sponsor would like to discuss the
cash flow projections for the next six months and have a
discussion on ways to reduce some of the expenditures. The

4. sponsor had seen some expenditures that bothered him. As soon
as Herb entered the sponsor’s office, the sponsor said:
It looks like you have no report with you. I specifically recall
asking you for a report on the cash flow projections.
Herb was somewhat displeased over this. Herb specifically
recalled that this was to be a discussion only and no report was
requested. But Herb knew that “rank has its privileges” and
questioning the sponsor’s communication skills would be
wrong. Obviously, this was not a good start to Friday the 13th.
At 10:00 a.m., Alice came into Herb’s office and he could see
from the expression on her face that she was somewhat
distraught. Alice then spoke:
Herb, last Monday I told you that the company was considering
me for promotion and the announcements would be made this
morning. Well, I did not get promoted. How come you never
wrote a letter of recommendation for me?
Herb remembered the conversation vividly. Alice did say that
she was being considered for promotion but never asked him to
write a letter of recommendation. Did Alice expect Herb to read
between the lines and try to figure out what she really meant?
Herb expressed his sincere apologies for what happened.
Unfortunately, this did not make Alice feel any better as she
stormed out of Herb’s office. Obviously, Herb’s day was getting
worse and it was Friday the 13th.
would be interfacing with on a daily basis were Alice, Bob,
Betty, and Frank.
●

5. ●
●
Alice was a seasoned veteran who worked with Herb in R&D.
Alice had been with the company longer than Herb and would
coordinate the efforts of the R&D person- nel.
Bob also had been with the company longer that Herb and had
spent his career in engineering. Bob would coordinate the
engineering efforts and drafting.
Betty was relatively new to the company. She would be
responsible for all reports, records management, and
procurements.
Case Studies
331
No sooner had Alice exited the doorway to Herb’s office when
Bob entered. Herb could
tell that Bob had a problem. Bob then stated:
In one of our team meetings last month, you stated that you had
personally contacted some of my engineering technicians and
told them to perform this week’s tests at 70°F, 90°F and 110°F.
You and I know that the specifications called for testing at
60°F, 80°F and 100°F. That’s the way it was always done and
you were asking them to perform the tests at different intervals
than the specifi- cations called for.
Well, it seems that the engineering technicians forgot the
conversation you had with them and did the tests according to
the specification criteria. I assumed that you had followed up
your con- versation with them with a memo, but that was not the

6. case. It seems that they forgot.
When dealing with my engineering technicians, the standard
rule is, “if it’s not in writing, then it hasn’t been said.” From
now on, I would recommend that you let me provide the
direction to my engineering technicians. My responsibility is
engineering and all requests of my engineering per- sonnel
should go through me.
Yes, Friday the 13th had become a very bad day for Herb. What
else could go wrong, Herb thought? It was now 11:30 a.m. and
almost time for lunch. Herb was considering locking his office
door so that nobody could find him and then disconnecting his
phone. But in walked Betty and Frank, and once again he could
tell by the expressions on their faces that they had a problem.
Frank spoke first:
I just received confirmation from procurement that they
purchased certain materials which we will need when we begin
manufacturing. We are a year away from beginning manufac-
turing and, if the final design changes in the slightest, we will
be stuck with costly raw materials that cannot be used. Also, my
manufacturing budget did not have the cash flow for early
procurement. I should be involved in all procurement decisions
involving manu- facturing. I might have been able to get it
cheaper that Betty did. So, how was this decision made without
me?
Before Herb could say anything, Betty spoke up:
Last month, Herb, you asked me to look into the cost of
procuring these materials. I found a great price at one of the
vendors and made the decision to purchase them. I thought that
this was what you wanted me to do. This is how we did it in the
last company I worked for.

7. Herb then remarked:
I just wanted you to determine what the cost would be, not to
make the final procurement deci- sion, which is not your
responsibility.
Friday the 13th was becoming possibly the worst day in Herb’s
life. Herb decided not to take any further chances. As soon as
Betty and Frank left, Herb immediately sent out e-mails to all of
the team members canceling the team meeting scheduled for
2:00 to 3:00 p.m. that afternoon.
332
MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS
QUESTIONS
How important are communication skills in project
management?
Was Herb the right person to be assigned as the project
manager?
There were communications issues with Alice, Bob, Betty, and
Frank. For each
communication issue, where was the breakdown in
communications: encoding, decoding, feedback, and so on?